Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Raleigh and I got the privilege to go to Sedona, AZ over Memorial Day Weekend with the Willard side of our family. Our sister-in-law, Laura, has grandparents that own a house out there and they allowed us to stay there for free for 4 days!! It was a blast, and really beautiful. So we stayed there and just had relax time, family time, etc. Here are some of the things we did:

-a hike that led to Indian ruins-mountain biking down red rock trails-witnessing an amazing thunder/lightning storm-croquet in a rain storm (best part of my whole weekend- such a great memory)-going to the spa (in the top 3 for best spas in the US! I'm not that into "The Spa" scene but this one was very nice)-each of us couples cooking dinner one night-lots of board games while it rained-hot tub and pool

So overall, it was a GREAT time. And it was cool 'cause Laura's grandparents stopped by on the last morning and her grandfather is Y.A. Tittle (NFL Hall of Fame). So I got a signed picture of him and that was cool.

Below: This is the house we stayed in :)This is after we hiked to the top of this "cave" area.Mountain biking

Sunday, May 17, 2009

So....last month when Raleigh and I were at a Padre's game in San Diego, a guy stopped us and talked us into signing up for this time share presentation where of course we would get many prizes. So we reluctantly did it, only because some of the prizes were cool and inviting to us. So finally yesterday was our day to do this. We got ourselves so psyched out and pumped up to say "NO" like ten times to whoever our presenter person was going to be. We were practicing with each other all morning, coming up with different angles they may come back with because of our reasons and excuses, and we arrived totally ready to tell them that we were NOT going to give in to any kind of thing they wanted to offer us.

Well....we get there, and the guy who is assigned to us comes and finds us in our chairs. It's pretty typical up to this point- he takes us by this little drink stand where we get to get soda, juice, etc. to make ourselves feel so welcome. He's making jokes and being overly nice to us, again, like we expected. Then he asks Raleigh what he does for a living. So Raleigh proceeds to tell him that right now he's "in between jobs" but used to be a pastor. So we kind of see his mood change just a little bit and within 10 minutes it's obvious to us that he actually would like to just get rid of us, because he can tell that we aren't in a position to do this, even if we wanted to- which we didn't. So he then asks us, 'is this something you're interested in right now?' We say, 'well sure, we'll just give it a try and check out what you have to say' (because we wanted our prizes- and to do that, we had to sit through the 90-minute presentation). He then tells us that it doesn't seem like this is for us, and we start to feel like he's almost wanting to get rid of us. So we're thinking, WOW! This was SO easy!! And it really was. So then the hardest part is that we have to endure the next hour of him "wasting each other's time" (as he put it). We had to drive around the property in this golf cart, watch this stupid 10 minute video, go tour some of the rooms, etc. And the whole time we're doing this, he is pretty annoyed and short with us. At one point he even said the "F" word. We were both just like, woah, what is going on!!??!?! So it was really funny 'cause we were so pumped up and ready to fight back with anything they may throw at us, but this guy was just regretting he got stuck with us and that we obviously weren't going to purchase anything. So we finally make it to the end and as a formality, he has to offer us the pricing, and he says, 'So you wanna buy it?' Raleigh says, 'No, but it seems like a good deal maybe in the future'. He's like, 'Ok let's get you guys outta here'. And that was it!

So it was much easier than we thought. We just had to endure our cocky, annoyed, jerk of a guy and then we got to leave without even really being pressured into it. One more thing to add though- at one point he starts going into this thing about how 60% of marriages in the US end in divorce, and how in Europe, it's only 25%, and that's because they vacation on average 6 weeks of the year, and in Spain from noon-3pm everyone just takes a break. And wouldn't we all be better off if we vacationed more? So that's now our joke- hope we vacation enough so we don't have to get divorced someday! And just as a disclaimer: Raleigh and I DO NOT joke about divorce- we really feel that is not a good thing to joke about. But this was just too funny to pass up. :)

So here are the prizes we got:$100 towards tickets at the Honda Center4 Padres tickets1 wine tasting "experience" (not really sure exactly what it's called...)a 3-night trip to somewhere in Northern California. We have to get there, then we get 3 nights free.

So really, not bad! It was a good experience, not one I'd want to do all the time, but really not as bad as we thought it would be. Then afterwards we went to Oceanside and hung out, which was fun. Just good to have a day away.

UPDATE: For those of you kind of wondering about how things are going with us during this time, I think things are going better. We are still in a lot of emotional hurt, and unfortunately since Raleigh was asked to resign, things continue to happen that are hurtful. That has probably been the toughest- it was enough to go through all the junk before he was asked to resign, but then I was hoping it was over- it hasn't been. But we feel like we are slowly beginning to heal from it. Raleigh has 3 job interviews this week. Two are at hotels in the area and one is at Costco for marketing. We just wanted him to get a "whatever" job for now, until we can sort through all of this, get our feet back on the ground, and maybe try ministry again somewhere else someday. If you have been thinking/praying for us, we have really needed it and we really appreciate it. It's also been really difficult on some people from the group, so Raleigh and I are sorting through it all with them too (which is good, but slows down our healing process).Ok that's it for now. :)